Case Study / Government / Animation

Pre Production

Synima had several proposals for this project and worked with the European Commission to choose and refine the one they felt best represented the award. We came up with the concept of showing people with different needs and disabilities moving through familiar city locations: busy shopping streets, public transport, museums and galleries, shopping centres. They would encounter challenges along the way and we would show how the challenge could be eliminated by a successful Access City applicant.

Animation

We settled on 2D animation style, with some pseudo 3D elements thrown in to give the video more dynamic impact. The client preferred a simple drawing style, just picking out the important elements of backgrounds and placing them in a background of strong colors. Characters would be drawn with a little more detail, but would still fit with the simplistic style. Each scene was kept short so we could fit a range of scenarios and disabilities into the relatively short run time.

So…did it work?

The resulting video is very endearing and tells a story of everyday challenges that can be easily avoided with a bit of effort from city councils. The European Commission used it extensively in promoting the 2022 awards and many cities from across the European Union applied to be considered for the award. Because of the multiple languages used across the continent, we had to tell this story through visuals only and Synima is very proud of the result.

The European Commission used it extensively in promoting the 2022 awards